fantasy

Conventional: The process of manufacturing an imaginary reality inside our minds, in the hopes that it will meet our psychological needs better than reality, which we assume to be unsatisfying. "…an attempt to control reality according to false needs" (T-1.VII.3:4). ACIM: The Course takes this conventional definition and stretches it to cover all that we normally experience, including our mental life, our perception of the world, and our earthly pursuits (in which we use the body to try to act out fantasies and make them "come true"). All these are attempts to find happiness through inventing our own reality. In fact, our primary means for seeking happiness in this world, the special relationship, is an externalized fantasy process, in which we pursue a fantasy of love, as well as a fantasy of vengeance on past shadow figures. Indeed, all fantasies are a seeking of vengeance (see T-16.VII.4:2). This vengeance is projected outward and produces our (fantasy-based) perception of a world that wants to take vengeance on us (see W-pI.23.3:4). Thus the world's attack on us is simply our own fantasy. We can be free of it simply by valuing reality more than fantasy. See dream. See T-9.IV.10-12.